Fantasy football (or fantasy soccer) is a game in which participants assemble an imaginary team of real life footballers and score points based on those players' actual statistical performance or their perceived contribution on the field of play. Usually players are selected from one specific division in a particular country, although there are many variations. The original game was created by Andrew Wainstein in England in 1991, when he set up Fantasy League Ltd after seeing the success of American fantasy sports games in the 1980s. Fantasy football has evolved in recent years from a simple recreational activity into a significant business due to exposure via the internet.

An emerging variant is club-based fantasy football in which participants select players from within their own club. Participating clubs typically have more than one football team and adopt club fantasy football to increase communication and banter between teams. Some clubs charge a nominal amount for players to enter a team and either use the proceeds as a fundraiser or to fund the fantasy league prizes. Club fantasy football leagues tend to be less sophisticated than the national variety since most clubs run them on a spreadsheet. Niche sports websites now offer online versions with both paid and free versions available.

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Most fantasy football leagues, especially those run by national newspapers, ask you to select 11 players within a price budget. There is usually a restriction on the number of players per club; a typical selection would be to select 1 goalkeeper, 4 defenders, 4 or 3 midfielders and 2 or 3 forwards. Some games are squad-based, where you choose not just a first XI but also a set of substitutes.

In smaller leagues played by a small group of people, players are bought by bidding between the rival managers rather than for a set amount of money. This means a particular player can only play for one team, and thus any points he accrues are credited to that team only. Typically, most leagues offer the chance to transfer players in and out of the team as the season progresses, in case of injury, suspension or loss of form.

As well as the above, points can be deducted for some or all of the following:

Conceding a goal (goalkeepers and defenders only)

Receiving a yellow or red card

Missing a penalty kick

Scoring an own goal

The number of points each achievement or offence is credited with varies between different games, for example in the Daily Telegraph league, three points are awarded for an assist, and five for a goal. Due to the emphasis placed on assists and goalscoring, the value of players can differ greatly from real-life football, both in terms of individuals and position. For example, Claude Makélélé, a world-class central midfield player, was rarely considered a valuable player in fantasy football because he was not an attacking player, as evidenced by three league goals in eight years at Real Madrid and Chelsea, and zero for the French national team in seventy-one appearances.

That is why some fantasy football games changed their scoring system to put greater emphasis on real player performance instead of mainly goals and assists. For instance the game KAISER uses player scores gained by computer analyses based on dozens of different criteria. These scores are supplied by the data provider OPTA.[1]

The game Oulala Fantasy Football uses a sophisticated scoring system. With 70 different points scoring criteria, which includes a matrix of any action that a player can perform, the criteria of 70 rises to a total of 275 dependent on each players position on the field. Detailed actions include corners won, shots on/off target, successful dribbles and provoking an offside as well as many more others. These stats are sourced from Opta Sports and update in real time.[2]

Most fantasy football games provide a choice of joining either private or public leagues. Public leagues are open to everybody and mostly there are leagues for each club or leagues for each country. League members then compete against each other and in some cases there is cash prizes for winning those leagues. Private leagues let the manager play with their friends only. Some games combine this with having unique teams in the leagues. This means that every Premier League player exists only once. As a result, there is a lot of activity on the transfer market where players are exchanged in between the community members.

Commissioner version of fantasy football is also available, similar to those available for American based fantasy sports like American football, baseball and basketball. Fantasy Premier League Commissioner,[3] allows users to run their own Premier League fantasy leagues with their own settings such as own player values, overall budget, fantasy points and own logo and personal domain name[4]

At the start of the season Fantasy football leagues can be set up in various ways. For leagues with unique teams, i.e. leagues where every player exist only once, there are at least two different starter options. Option 1 is a player auction. Every player is auctioned and the manager of a community need to bid for the players. Manager have a certain budget for the auction. Option 2 is a player draft. Each manager is allocated a certain number of players.

For leagues without unique teams, i.e. every manager can own every player if he has sufficient funding. Usually there is neither a draft nor an auction but managers can pick their players until they have used up their budget. This starter option is used by the most widespread fantasy football game Barclay's Premier League Fantasy Football. With over 2 million people registering for the Fantasy Premier League each season, there is no draft or auction option, as this would severely limit the number of people who could play the official game. By having a system that doesn’t require unique teams, it allows managers to select the same players and gives them the ability to compete against everyone else on a wider scale.[5]

Various fantasy football games with unique teams offer the option of a player auction. At the beginning of the season, players are put on a transfer market and manager can bid for them. Some games even continue this auction system during the season (e.g. kaiser.co.uk). Kaiser also offers the opportunity to take the league to the next season. In this case new leagues can be started throughout the season without making it less interesting. Other games with an auction system include plmanager.co.uk and fantasyleague.co.uk.

The draft is an option to jump-start a league. This is especially interesting for leagues that are set up during the season. From day 1, managers can line up their team for the next match day and trade players with other community member or the computer. The draft is a common feature for NFL fantasy football games and the German Bundesliga. More than one Premier League manager game offers a similar feature.[6][7]